Research funding and academic engagement: a Singapore case

ABSTRACT

Universities have been called upon to work more closely with the industry and actively take part in economic development. Research funding has been used as an instrument to direct research agenda and promote technology partnership. The study examines how research funding is associated with various academic engagement in the context of Singapore, a country with explicit policies to encourage university-industry collaboration. Based on a survey with 276 academics in STEM fields, we find that research funding does play a role in academic engagement. In particular, funding from industry is observed to have a significant correlation with patent licensing, consultancy, and serving on advisory board. In addition to funding, more on-the-ground university and government effort to support academic scientists in their commercialisation activity, in particular, new ventures, would be helpful.

KEYWORDS:

• Government funding
• industry funding
• academic engagement
• STEM faculty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Singapore National Res-earch Foundation [NRF2014-NRF-SRIE001-023];Singapore Ministry of Education [MOE AcRF Tier 1 Grant].